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Terminus! (among other things)-
Well, we are back, and we had a blast! Draco and the Malfoys like us! Kids were asking us to sign their T-shirts! Eek! More under the cut, because I'm rambling a bit.
I could go on for ages about the conference, which I enjoyed *much* more than I expected to - will write a longer entry later. For now, I've just got to say that I had an absolute blast at the Snape panel, "Good Night, Sweet Prince". The general consensus was that, where Snape is concerned, Rowling's book is wiser than she is, and she did write him as a hero - but does not recognize it. One of the women spoke of him as a knight (exactly how I see him!) and as batman! And several people came up to me later to tell me how much they had enjoyed my presentation, including sinick (I did the classic "squee" and embraced her!) and amydmartin, a friend of Cardigrl's.
Then Amy Snow (aka Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons) did a podcast in the park of lots of wizard rockers - that was a blast, too. And we did lots of great non-conference things - Sue the dinosaur; a great exhibit on mythic creatures; a tour of the city by bus and boat; the Sears tower with a lot of wizard rockers; the art museum; the aquarium - it's hard to believe we were only there six days. Deirdre has put a photo album up at the Gringotts grrls myspace page, and it sums up the trip really well.
But gosh, were there some fascinating discussions! I'm afraid I got a bit cranky with a grandma who is a Rowling and Ginny fan - it's true Ginny is not all bad, but, at the time, I just couldn't admit it. I wish I had managed to mention the couple of scenes in which I did like Ginny. Oh, well. I couldn't think of them at the time.
Still more fascinating was a professor called Jeffrey Rudski, who did a presentation on disability in Harry Potter, and has an autistic son. He believes the way Rowling treats the disabled in these books is absolutely unconscionable - and I think he's right. He said, when I was raving (again) about her misuse of Christian symbolism, "It's Christianity as understood by an atheist." What an interesting comment! I'd agree that her core beliefs, as I glean them from this text, have nothing to do with anything I recognize as Christianity. He disagreed that she is Calvinist, pointing out that the Calvinists *do not know*, and do not pretend to know, who is saved and who is damned. Rowling's mentality is quite different - she knows. Gryffindors are the elect. Interesting.
That's my brief and spontaneous summary of some of the high points. There were a lot, really, and the train trip was fun, too, though it took us nearly 24 hours to get back to NY state from Chicago. Will try for a more extended/coherent summary later.
I could go on for ages about the conference, which I enjoyed *much* more than I expected to - will write a longer entry later. For now, I've just got to say that I had an absolute blast at the Snape panel, "Good Night, Sweet Prince". The general consensus was that, where Snape is concerned, Rowling's book is wiser than she is, and she did write him as a hero - but does not recognize it. One of the women spoke of him as a knight (exactly how I see him!) and as batman! And several people came up to me later to tell me how much they had enjoyed my presentation, including sinick (I did the classic "squee" and embraced her!) and amydmartin, a friend of Cardigrl's.
Then Amy Snow (aka Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons) did a podcast in the park of lots of wizard rockers - that was a blast, too. And we did lots of great non-conference things - Sue the dinosaur; a great exhibit on mythic creatures; a tour of the city by bus and boat; the Sears tower with a lot of wizard rockers; the art museum; the aquarium - it's hard to believe we were only there six days. Deirdre has put a photo album up at the Gringotts grrls myspace page, and it sums up the trip really well.
But gosh, were there some fascinating discussions! I'm afraid I got a bit cranky with a grandma who is a Rowling and Ginny fan - it's true Ginny is not all bad, but, at the time, I just couldn't admit it. I wish I had managed to mention the couple of scenes in which I did like Ginny. Oh, well. I couldn't think of them at the time.
Still more fascinating was a professor called Jeffrey Rudski, who did a presentation on disability in Harry Potter, and has an autistic son. He believes the way Rowling treats the disabled in these books is absolutely unconscionable - and I think he's right. He said, when I was raving (again) about her misuse of Christian symbolism, "It's Christianity as understood by an atheist." What an interesting comment! I'd agree that her core beliefs, as I glean them from this text, have nothing to do with anything I recognize as Christianity. He disagreed that she is Calvinist, pointing out that the Calvinists *do not know*, and do not pretend to know, who is saved and who is damned. Rowling's mentality is quite different - she knows. Gryffindors are the elect. Interesting.
That's my brief and spontaneous summary of some of the high points. There were a lot, really, and the train trip was fun, too, though it took us nearly 24 hours to get back to NY state from Chicago. Will try for a more extended/coherent summary later.
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Now that you mention it, I think I recall you posting that. I hope you weren't offended that I didn't remember; I have enough trouble keeping track of my own schedule! I didn't even remember that Terminus was going on until someone mentioned being there when they replied to me recently in a comment. And then there was Portus not too long before Terminus... I get all confused with all this convention stuff that's been happening. ;-) Anyway, I meant nothing more than, "Oh, O.K., that's where you were." It's not as if I post a great deal, myself, but I do read my f-list via cell phone so generally notice if someone is or isn't around.
Now, before discussing the faith aspect, Mary, I need to clarify: I was NOT objecting to you talking about Christianity, or your Christian perspective, here on your journal. Upon re-reading my comment, and your response, it seemed to me you might have read it that way. When I said, "I would prefer to keep the discussion of the HP books to a broader sense of spirituality and ethics," I meant in the context of general HP discussion at large.
So no, I did not find your post offensive. (Even if I did, hey, it's your journal.) The only thing I found "offensive" was the way in which the other person used atheists as a negative example. Yes, atheists bash people of faith as much as people of faith bash atheists, but I still find it objectionable. And I realized it might have seemed to you to be an innocuous analogy, so I just wanted to point out that, as someone who spent a few years as an atheist and knows and respects intelligent, thoughtful atheists, it was not innocuous at all.
(So sorry... I'm verbose. Faith and values continued in next comment.)